Okay, so this part was written a while ago now and I struggled over it at the time. This is something like the sixth draft (it differs slightly from the version posted on BBBFic but mostly for grammatical reasons) and I'm still not comfortable with it. It does move the story forward however so I can't just cut it out the way I was tempted to do.

If you're following the story, please bear with me. It gets better again.



The stone flew across the street, glanced off the kerbstone and angled upwards unexpectedly. The scratch it left on the side of the parked car didn't slow it down much and it continued on its trajectory unwatched. Faith knew she should probably feel guilty about the random act of damage against the vehicle but right at that moment she couldn't bring herself to care about it, she had far too many other things vying for her attention.

Like, what the hell had just happened? How had she let herself be goaded into an argument, and about Anya of all things? That was pureold-school Faith and while some people thought the whole retro thing was the bomb these days, retro-Faith was to be avoided at all costs. Shame the same couldn't be said for leg warmers and acid yellow stiletto pumps, Faith tried to hide a tight smile as she wondered how long it would be before fashion-victim B showed up wearing something along those lines.

God! She was letting herself get sidetracked again; she had to regain her focus. One thing she'd realised early on in jail was that without focus she'd be lost – or crazy. Which in her case was pretty much the same thing. So she'd focused. Not on her release date the way the other cons did; but on keeping control. On being the kind of person she wanted to be. On finding out exactly who Faith was. She had considered her attempts at regaining focus a success – up until five minutes ago.

One relatively meaningless argument and her focus, her control, was shattered. That was something she couldn't afford to let happen, and not just for her sake. Okay, so maybe it was a little egotistical to think that the fate of the world hung in the balance but was it really? She'd nearly helped bring about an apocalypse before after all.

Kicking violently at another stone in her path she watched as it disappeared down a storm drain on the other side of the street. Single-handedly clearing the streets of loose chips wasn't much of a purpose, and she was pretty sure it was something the world could cope without if she decided not to make it her life's work, but right now it was actually helping.

She was frustrated – that was probably the only word that really described how she felt. Nothing she'd done or said had made any kind of difference and any time it looked like she was making some progress it had been blown apart the very next minute. One step forward and two hundred steps back every single fucking time.

And this latest development? What the hell was that all about? Was the kiss just an automatic reaction? Had she maybe led him on somehow? After all hungry `n' horny post slayageness had been her trademark, although she'd be damned if she was going to share that particular tidbit of information with anyone right now – letting that slip would kind of underscore the same-old-Faith vibe some of them were still carrying. Or maybe there was another explanation – could there be something more to his motivations than the simple fact that she was there?

She almost wished for a moment that she could get inside his head, maybe make some sense of whatever was going on in there. A random memory tugged at her subconscious – the faint glimmerings of a plan, perhaps?

Trying not to think about it in case she chased the idea away, she focused instead on another stone in her path. This one was oddly geometric, almost cube-like and as it skittered away from her she wondered if there were such things as natural dice – after all, that stone did have a lot of the characteristics and did seem to roll like one. Just like that, the idea she'd been resolutely not thinking about bloomed into life in her head – now it was more than a glimmering, now it was the makings of a fully formed plan.

"I rolled the dice," she whispered it to herself hearing the echo in her memory.

This time she didn't even try to hide the smile. So he thought he could push her away, did he? Did he not realise who he was dealing with here? She could push back twice as hard.

Lifting her head, she saw that her wanderings had brought her all the way back to the motel without her even realising it. The streets were quieter than usual, even for this small town, and she realised she hadn't seen another living soul since she walked away from Xander. She stopped to ponder that for a second, there was almost a "night-time in Sunnydale" vibe about the place. A noise from off to the side made her start and as she looked in that direction she saw a guy standing in the shadow of the motel door as he held it open for her. Relieved, she shook her head and turned on her heel. It was time to find Xander Harris and put him straight. She was so intent on her task that she didn't notice the guy's eyes glint with a yellowy sheen as he watched her go.